Jealous
by MissLizzyJ
Summary: There's a new woman in Dodge City and Kitty's not happy about it. Third in the Shotgun Series.


A/N As usual, I don't own Gunsmoke or its characters; they're just good friends who visit me from time to time.

Jealous

Dedicated to Amanda Blake

_Kitty and Doc were having their morning coffee in the Long Branch. Doc had asked Kitty to marry him for perhaps the two hundredth time and Kitty had laughingly protested that she was still trying to make up her mind. Doc had just decided he was going to finally shame that overgrown civil servant once and for all into giving the beautiful redhead a real proposal when Newly burst through the swinging doors._

"_Beg your pardon, Miss Kitty," he said, tipping his hat. "Doc, they need you at the Dodge House. A woman's been injured."_

"_A woman!" Kitty exclaimed as Doc got up from the table. "Do you want my help, Doc?" _

"_Why don't you come along, Kitty, just in case?"_

_At the Dodge House, a blonde woman of about fifty was lying on the sofa in the sitting room, a crowd gathered around her. Another woman was fanning her._

"_Move aside, everyone," Doc said cantankerously as they approached. "Give the lady some air."_

_Howie, the clerk, rushed over. "She fell down the stairs, Doc. She says she's not hurt bad but we didn't want to take any chances. Of course, Miss Dutton," Howie directed this to the woman, "your stay will be on the house."_

"_Oh, I'm afraid I couldn't impose, sir," the woman said in a slight, and if Kitty wasn't mistaken, phony, southern accent. "I'm just fine, really," she said to Doc._

"_Now, why don't you let me be the judge of that, Miss Dutton," Doc said, bending over the woman on the sofa. _

"_Call me Maggie, Doctor."_

"_Well, Maggie, I can see you're going to have a big knot on the side of your head. Are you hurt anywhere else?"_

"_I'm afraid I twisted my ankle, but I'm sure if I can just get back up to my room and rest I'll be fine."_

"_Nonsense!" Doc barked. "I need to examine you in my office first."_

_Kitty was quickly becoming irritated with this aging southern belle. Why couldn't Doc examine her in her, as of this moment, free hotel room? She realized she was completely unneeded here and was about to slip away discreetly when she heard a familiar voice. _

"_All right, what's the problem here?" Kitty looked in the direction of the double doors. Matt, his head and shoulders visible over the rest of the men standing around, was making his way in their direction. His hand barely brushed the brim of his hat as his eyes met hers briefly, then turned toward Doc and his patient. "You all right, ma'am?"_

"_Well, I've got everything under control, Matt," Doc said. "But, since you're here, you can carry her over to the office for me." What _was_ Matt doing here? Since when did they send for Matt over some woman tripping on her own skirts on the stairs?_

"_Thank you for your concern, Marshal." Maggie looked up at Matt and Kitty could have sworn she batted her eyes. "Doctor Adams thinks I may have sprained my ankle." Kitty wondered if she was the only one who noticed that Doc had said no such thing or that Maggie's southern accent had deepened considerably when she started talking to Matt. She was willing to bet serious money that this woman's flirting was not having the desired effect on Matt. Still, when Matt lifted her effortlessly in his arms, Kitty briefly considered going across the street and throwing herself down the stairs of the Long Branch, just to get a little extra attention from him, before remembering she was above such obvious manipulation._

"_I sure do appreciate having such a big, strong man come to my assistance," Maggie drawled, giving Matt's upper arm a squeeze._

_Kitty rolled her eyes at this and looked over at Doc, hoping to share a sarcastic remark, only to see him looking at Maggie appreciatively. While she was sure Matt was immune to the woman's dubious charms, it appeared as though Doc was about to succumb. Either way, the result would be the same. By next week Maggie would be staying at the Long Branch, taking advantage of Kitty's hospitality while trying to seduce Matt right in front of her, apparently ignorant of the small (yet obvious to even the most inept outlaw) claim Kitty had on him, while Doc mooned over her like a lovesick calf. Well, not this time._

"_Are you gonna go take care of your patient, Doc, or are you just gonna stand here while Matt does?"_

"_What? Oh, yes, I need to be getting over to the office, Kitty." Doc tugged on his ear and then rubbed over his mustache. "Can you pack up her things and bring them over?"_

"_Sure. I'd be glad to," Kitty said, the tone of her voice indicating just the opposite. She watched Doc walk out the door, shaking her head slightly. "Men!" she uttered under her breath like a curse, before going over to the desk to inquire which room was Miss Dutton's._

Kitty and Matt sat alone at a table in the Long Branch, one that was strategically placed to both afford them the most privacy and the best view of the swinging doors. Matt had just returned from nearly three weeks away and Kitty had been absently filling him in on the latest goings-on in Dodge and at the Long Branch while they both watched who entered and left the saloon. It was getting near closing time and Kitty could barely concentrate on their conversation for thinking of the evening yet to come, at least until Matt asked her where Doc was.

"You're telling me Doc hasn't been around at all tonight?"

"I'm telling you Doc has barely been around here since you left. As far as I know he and Maggie had a late supper tonight at Delmonico's. What he's doing right now I wouldn't want to guess."

"Who's Maggie?"

"Remember that woman who got hurt at the Dodge House just before you left?" Matt nodded. _You ought to remember her; you carried her over to Doc's_. "Maggie Dutton. She fell down the stairs and had a concussion and a sprained ankle and needed to spend a few days at Doc's. Well, she's still there."

"Still there! You mean...she's _living _at Doc's now? Why didn't Doc send her over to Ma Smalley's, or-"

"Or why isn't she staying _here_? Well, at the time, I just didn't have the room. I hired a couple new girls to help with that big cattle drive that's in town and the only place I could have put her was in my sitting room. And I knew how you'd feel about _that_." Kitty gave him a pointed look.

"Yeah," Matt said rather uncomfortably, though there was no one nearby who could have overheard her.

"Not only that," Kitty went on, "She claims she's working for Doc now. Working for _what_, I'd like to know. You know Doc doesn't make enough money to pay anyone."

"Well, what's Doc say about that?"

Kitty shook her head. "If I had the chance to talk to him without Maggie hovering every minute, I could probably answer that question. I'm telling you, Matt, that woman is up to no good. I can't put my finger on it, but there's something I just don't trust about her."

"Well, what's she done wrong, Kitty? From what you've been telling me, the only thing she's guilty of is monopolizing Doc's time. Are you sure you aren't just jealous of her?"

"Not you, too! Now you listen to me, Cowboy, there's only one man around here I that I spend any time being jealous over and it _isn't_ Doc."

"Everyone's gone, Miss Kitty," Sam called from the bar. "All right if I close up now?"

"Sure, Sam. Why don't you just go ahead and lock up now and we can take care of things in the morning?" Kitty looked over at Matt, almost but not quite forgetting about Maggie.

"Sure thing, Miss Kitty." Sam nodded, unsurprised. As usual, Miss Kitty was sending him out the door without cleaning up on the first night of the Marshal's return. He locked the doors and said his goodbyes as he left.

"See you tomorrow, Sam."

"Goodnight, Sam," Matt called, smiling at Kitty. "What does _that _mean, not me, too?"

"Well, Festus asked me the same thing, not in so many words of course. And then, yesterday…."

_Kitty climbed the stairs to Doc's office, determined to talk to him privately about the situation between him and Maggie. Stepping inside the door, she saw Maggie kneeling on the floor near Doc's desk, piles of paper all around her. Hearing her footsteps, Maggie turned to face her, the momentary guilty look on her face quickly replaced with a fake smile. _

"_It's Miss Russell, isn't it? What are you-what can I do for you?"_

"_I'd like to see Doc, if he isn't too busy."_

"_Doctor's out seeing patients today, so I thought I'd rearrange his records while he's gone. Is there something I can help you with?" Maggie asked pleasantly, the look in her eyes anything but friendly or helpful. Kitty couldn't help noticing the piles of paper on the floor looked like patient files, some of which, she realized uncomfortably, were probably hers. There was nothing in her medical history, or that of anyone else in Dodge City, for that matter, that she wanted that woman to know about. Until now, Kitty suspected the woman was looking for an easy life as the wife of a doctor, but this put things in a different light._

"_I've had this cough I was hoping to have him take a look at," said Kitty, who hadn't had so much as a sniffle in the last three years._

"_I'm sure Doctor has something you can take for that," Maggie said, going to his medicine cabinet. "If this doesn't help you, come back in a couple days talk and him about it."_

"...and not only that, she charged me twice what Doc would have, and wanted the money up front, not that it's a problem, but you know Doc just gives me a bill at the end of the month. Something mighty strange is going on, Matt. Can you talk to Doc? Or can you try to find anything out about her?"

"Yeah, I'll send some wires and see if she's wanted for anything, that's about all I can do. It'll take a few days to get anything back. If there _is_ anything. In the meantime I'll talk to Doc if I can, all right?"

"Sure, Matt." She sat lost in thought so long that Matt finally asked her if anything else was wrong. She was still a bit annoyed with him for asking if she was jealous when he knew perfectly well-Surely he must just be teasing her. And he did agree to look into the situation. Finally she said, "Nothing a nightcap wouldn't take care of. Shall we have it upstairs?"

"I was wondering if you were going to ask."

The next day, Matt managed to corner Doc long enough to get him into the Long Branch for a drink. Despite his and Kitty's best efforts, they were unable to get Doc to talk about the exact nature of his relationship with Maggie, although they did learn that she told Doc she'd been a nurse during the war, and was "darned efficient at running my office." After sharing that less-than-revealing information, Doc thanked them for the drink and went on his way.

The following afternoon, Matt brought Kitty the answers they had been waiting for. "She's not wanted for anything," Matt told her, handing her a small stack of telegrams he'd received in response to his inquiries, "but every one of these sheriffs has had a man come in to report her missing, along with two or three hundred dollars of their money.

"_None_ of them preferred charges?" Kitty asked him. "Isn't that a little unusual?"

"Oh, not really. These are all businessmen or professionals, and it was a relatively small amount of money for most of them. They probably didn't want to admit they were taken in by a woman. One of the men almost married her, but she worked for the others, stayed in town for about a month, got what she could from them, and moved on."

"A month. She's been in Dodge about three weeks now. Matt, can't you—"

He shook his head. "Unless she actually commits a crime here, there isn't much I can do about it. Kitty, does Doc even have that kind of money?"

Kitty shrugged. "I'm not sure. I don't think he's quite as poor as he makes out to be, but that's probably about all he's got in the bank. I don't think he keeps anywhere near that kind of cash any place where she could get her hands on it."

"Do you think she could talk him out of the money he has in the bank?"

"Well, you met her, what do you think? Matt, I understand that you can't do anything to stop her, but I can, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let her take everything Doc's got. Since she's not wanted, can I keep those for a while?" She motioned at the telegrams.

"Well, sure, but they're still technically official, so I'm gonna need them back when you're done. What do you have in mind?"

"Doc's out of town until tomorrow night seeing patients, and I'll need this afternoon to get ready. Can you get her over here first thing in the morning? Before we're open."

"Well, I'll try, but she's not exactly your biggest admirer, you know. How am I supposed to convince her to come over here?"

"I don't care what you do, just get her over here." Matt raised his eyebrows at her. "Wait, I guess there are a couple things I'd rather you _not_ do to get her over here," Kitty amended, smiling at him. "Tell her I'm sick. She'd probably jump at the chance to make a couple more dollars to take from Doc."

"Well, I'd better let you get to your plans, then. See you later, Kitty," he said with a nod and a smile.

The next morning Kitty stood behind the bar, preparing to open. The front doors were closed but unlocked, and she'd told Sam to come in an hour later than normal. Her back was to the door when she heard it slam shut. She continued the task she was working on, waiting for Maggie to speak first.

"You wanted to see me?"

Kitty turned around to face her. "I did." She looked the woman directly in the eye and waited for her to speak again.

Maggie crossed her arms in front of her impatiently. "Well? What is it?"

"I want you out of Dodge." Kitty continued to look at her unblinkingly.

Maggie gave a humorless laugh. "Oh? What are you gonna do about it?" she asked, all traces of her syrupy southern accent gone.

Kitty tossed something onto the bar a few feet away from her. "There's a stage leaving Dodge in an hour. That's your ticket. Along with five hundred dollars to stay gone."

Maggie looked at her curiously. "You want to pay me to leave Dodge? I was about to do that anyway. Why do I think there's more to it than that?" She approached the bar and picked up the ticket and money, not noticing the shotgun on the bar under Kitty's right hand.

"Stay gone," Kitty repeated, "and never contact Doc again."

"Oh, I see, this is about Galen. So, you aren't satisfied with just the Marshal, you want Galen for yourself, too."

Kitty refused to take the bait. Caught off her guard by Kitty's lack of denial, Maggie went on. "You've been carrying on with both of them for years. Well, they both deserve to have a woman to themselves and I'm going to tell them about you and what you're up to just as soon as Galen gets back."

"Go ahead, Maggie. Go on back to Doc and Matt and tell them what you just told me. The parts that are true they won't care about and the lies they won't believe. Or you can take my offer right now and be on the next stage out of here with five hundred dollars in your pocket before Doc gets back."

"So, you mean just leave without saying goodbye?"

"You mean like you did with all the other men? No, I'm not letting you hurt Doc like that." Kitty slapped a piece of stationery with her handwriting on it on the bar, followed by a blank piece of paper and a pen. "Make a copy of that and sign your name."

Maggie picked up the letter and read it. "I don't have a sick sister to take care of."

"That's not my problem."

"What's stopping me from walking out with the money right now?" Maggie finally noticed the shotgun on the bar, seconds before Kitty picked it up with both hands.

"I am. Start writing. And when you're finished you can copy this letter." Kitty laid two more pieces of stationery on the bar. Maggie quickly copied the short note and signed her name to it defiantly. She picked up the next letter and started reading it. It was considerably longer.

"What's this?"

"Insurance. As long as you never contact Doc again that confession stays in my safe. Try it and, well, as you've noticed, I have a lot of influence with the Marshal."

"How do I know you won't give it to him anyway?"

Kitty raised the shotgun again. "I guess you'll have to take my word for it."

"You wouldn't shoot an unarmed woman."

"You have no idea what I wouldn't do."

"Go to hell, you cheap saloon tramp."

Kitty fired the gun over Maggie's shoulder and the window of one of the front doors exploded. Giving Kitty a scathing glare, Maggie picked up the pen and began writing.

The front doors opened and Matt appeared at the swinging doors. "Everything all right in here, Kitty?" he asked nonchalantly.

"Mornin' Matt. Sorry about the gunshot. I was just showing Maggie how to load this and the darn thing went off." Kitty shrugged. "I don't know how that happened."

"All right, well, just be more careful next time, huh?" Tipping his hat, Matt walked away. Maggie muttered vile insults the like of which Kitty hadn't heard since her days in Abilene. She stood waiting patiently until Maggie finally slammed the pen down on the bar. "All right, I'm finished. Now what?"

Kitty picked up the letters, waved them dry, and made Maggie wait while she read each one to make sure they were copied exactly. She folded each letter and slipped them into her handbag. She returned the shotgun to its place under the bar and pulled her pistol out of her handbag, checking to be sure it was loaded. Maggie sighed, seeing the last chance to turn things in her favor slip away.

"Now we go over to Doc's so you can pack your bags."

*j*j*j*j*j*j*j*j*j*j*j*j*j*j*j*j*

The next night Matt was out of town again, and Kitty had nearly given up hope that any of her friends were coming by when Doc walked into the Long Branch an hour before closing.

"Well, hello stranger!" Kitty said, giving Doc a dazzling smile. "Buy you a drink?"

"Kitty," Doc said, tipping his hat. "You sure you have time to talk to an old fool like me?"

Kitty poured a glass of whiskey for each of them and slid Doc's in front of him.

"Well, I'm a pretty good listener." Kitty picked up her glass and waited for Doc to follow suit. Raising his glass to her, he nodded and then drained the contents. Kitty sipped at her drink and they both stood silently with their own thoughts for a few minutes. Finally Doc broke the silence.

"Kitty, have I proposed marriage to you lately?"

Putting her hand over his she said,"Three weeks ago. Just like clockwork."

"Old Fool"

"_You sound like you're sellin' marriage."_

"_Well, maybe I am a little bit. What's wrong with marriage?"_

"_I wouldn't know. I never had a chance to find out."_

"_Oh, pshaw! I suppose you're gonna tell me that you ain't ever been asked."_

"_Not lately."_

"_Well now that's not true! You know yourself that I've proposed to you one way or another every three weeks for the last four years."_

_"Well, Doc, I just haven't had time to make up my mind yet."_

"_Well, you just better be careful, I'm liable to get away!"_

season six, episode fifteen, written by John Meston


End file.
